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Volume 11, Issue 3

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Evaluation of Financial Options Using Radial Basis Functions in Mathematica
Michael Kelly

In the academic literature there are two common approaches for the evaluation of financial options. These are stochastic calculus and partial differential equations. The former is the method of choice for statisticians and theoreticians, while the latter is the principal tool of physicists and computer scientists because it lends itself to practical implementation schemes. Occasionally small modifications such as linear regression and binomial trees are used, but these are usually treated within either of the two previously mentioned fields. Rarely do the practitioners of these fields compare and contrast methodologies, let alone admit completely different approaches. While Radial Basis Function (RBF) methodology has previously been applied to solving some differential equations, there are very few papers considering its applicability to financial mathematics. The purpose of this article is to show not only that RBF can solve many of the evaluation problems for financial options, but that with Mathematica it can do so with accuracy and speed.

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About the Author
Michael Kelly is currently the Research Director for Unetich Trading LLC, which operates at the Chicago Board of Trade. He designs automated trading programs using Mathematica that implement trading strategies based upon statistical rules. Previously he was a professor of mathematical and computational finance in the Stuart School of Business, Illinois Institute of Technology and a derivatives consultant. Prior to that he was senior lecturer in both mathematics and finance in what is now the School of Computing and Mathematics and the School of Economics and Finance, respectively, at the University of Western Sydney, Australia. He has also been a visiting research fellow at the University of Sydney, the Australian National University, and the University of Warwick (U.K.). For at least 15 years his lectures and research have been based upon computational mathematics and maths programs such as Mathematica and Matlab.

Michael Kelly
Research Director
Unetich Trading LLC,
Suite 2020,
Chicago Board of Trade
141 W. Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60604-2994

mk1444@rcn.com


     
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